Accident Prone

If you see a BomberPat post, chances are it's going to be fantastic, and this examination of modern pop culture in the Minor Annoyances thread is no less than stellar:

On 3/17/2023 at 9:50 AM, BomberPat said:

I read something recently about how the way we - and particularly younger people - consume pop culture now has changed to the point that time isn't really relevant; to a kid who's basically never watched linear TV, never rented a movie, never bought an album, there's just no distinction between something released today and something released twenty years ago, because they're all available in the same places at the same time, at the press of a button. There's little to no sense that there's been a progression between those two points.

The post I read was talking about it in terms of why things like Roald Dahl's books are being rewritten, or why certain TV shows might be edited or given trigger warnings - because if everything seems in some way contemporary, without the framing of instinctively knowing "oh yes, this old show is a repeat, it's been on ITV every Sunday for decades", if everything feels now, you don't have the experience to allow you to intellectualise, "this was made a long time ago, so it will be slightly problematic", because "this is here now, just like the show I watched five minutes ago that came out today".

I don't know how much I agree with in that sense of values and problematic content and so on, but I definitely think it plays a huge part in the nostalgia contingent on old media, especially music. "Running Up That Hill" may as well have been a brand new sing when it was on Stranger Things, for how Gen Z seized upon it as a bit on anthem - to the point that I got thoroughly annoyed at lots of "maybe you're not ready for this, but your kids are going to love it" memes about Kate Bush, as if she was some obscure '80s relic, and not one of the biggest stars of the decade. But when you can just pluck an incredible song out of the past and, through its inclusion in other media, or even just a TikTok trend or savvy social media, get it back in the charts, what hope does a new release have? 

This has probably always been somewhat the case (I'm thinking '50s revival stuff in the '70s and '80s), but think of the TV and cinema that's come out over the past twenty years, and how much of that has been soundtracked by contemporary music? Most Marvel movies - and especially Guardians Of The Galaxy - have consciously "retro" soundtracks, and any time I see a kids/family movie, it seems to be soundtracked by stuff from the '80s or '90s. In Red Rose, a series about teenagers finishing their GCSEs in the present day, they all listen to Sandstorm by Darude at their end-of-term party. Between all that, no Top Of The Pops, and I doubt many kids are listening to the radio or watching Kerrang! or Kiss TV or whatever, and most music festivals are headlined by bands that have been around for decades. There's no coherent cultural moment around which a new song, artist, or genre can feel like it's definably of its time. Not enough people are all listening to something all at once for there to be any solid sense of 2010s nostalgia in a decade's time, in my opinion, because it wasn't a decade defined in any way by its music - and I don't think that's me getting old. 

It always amazes me when I see covers bands in pubs, and while there's usually a few idiosyncrasies, you can generally predict the entire setlist. You're going to get Mr. Brightside, you're going to get Sex Is On Fire, you're going to get Seven Nation Army. You might get the odd "ironic" cover of a more recent pop song, but aside from that, if these were the only bands you ever saw, you'd be forgiven for thinking that no new songs had been released since 2008.

On 3/6/2023 at 11:59 AM, WyattSheepMask said:

Funeral For A Friend are back again, this time touring Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation 

With fees on top, this is £45 a ticket. They can get fucked. At the rate that ticket prices are sky rocketing (thanks Brexit/Russia!), rampant fees are going unchecked (thanks Ticketmaster!) and the secondary markets are going unpoliced, I'll never be going to a gig again. I'd rather put all my financial eggs in one basket and go to festival.

AEW deliver their usual 'weird Dynamite after a critically acclaimed PPV'. They just can't seem to get that right. Some great promos, some okay matches, and some right shite that didn't really make the most of Saturday's momentum.

As an aside, I was a massive AR Fox fan during his indie run, but fuck me does his stuff look bush league nowadays. He walks and runs like he's trying to make his away across an icy pond, it just looks terrible. Proper Divas-Era levels of running the ropes on display.

And enough with the crash pads and cushioned gimmicks now. Either take the bump properly with a few tables or don't do it all. Properly irritates me seeing a wrestler lying on PE mats layered on a high-jumper's crash pad, selling it like death.

Every match on Revolution either blew off a long-term story or elevated a long-term story, and in no less than two cases they did so with a genuine match of the year contender/decade contender. This rhetoric that AEW doesn't tell compelling stories or build feuds anymore, and is just some match-making promotion as some would suggest, is asinine. The company is built around feuds and characters, but they also make sure that the actual in-ring isn't ignored or suffers as a result. They aren't perfect at striking that balance every week but they're doing a better job at creating weekly TV that culminates in PPVs than any wrestling company in the past twenty years.

There's wrestlers you watch in the moment and think, "I am watching the best pro wrestler of all time at the top of their fucking game". I've gotten that with Tanahashi, Okada, HBK, Omega, Danielson, and now every single time I get that with MJF. He's just head, shoulders, cock and balls above mostly everyone else. He walks the walk, talks the talk, and he gets better each and every time.

Paging @Merzbowto the thread:

Fuck me, that was a belter of a show. AEW has surpassed NXT for always delivering (and, in some cases, over-delivering) the goods on PPV/PLE.

You've got potentially the greatest Iron Man match of all time, potentially the greatest Texas Death/Last Man Standing gimmick match of all time, a fucking superb trios match that pissed Jim Ross off to no end, and Jericho lying down clean in the middle again to help get the new lads over. All within one PPV under four hours long.

It seems like once or twice per year, AEW has a PPV that's in the "Greatest PPV of all time" conversation, and this is one of them. When was the last time WWE were hitting those plaudits? 2014? 2005? 2002? 2001? They may make the most money but they aren't making the most compelling all-round professional fucking wrestling product, that's for sure.

They're milking it, and I've been to every one of them since their first "retirement" tour, but with Dashboard supporting I absolutely cannot say no to that.

AEW have perfected the art of the TV ladder match; just let the lads go balls out with crazy shit for fifteen minutes and leave all that overrated phycology and pacing nonsense at the door. Cracking stuff, everyone looked great here, especially Hobbs, KT and Kommander.

They've also perfected the art of the modern, non-PG wrestling promo, as both the Bryan and Mox interviews were in-fucking-credible, and carried the torch after the last few weeks where MJF has ruled supreme. Hangman was quality as well.

The show had it's low points too (Matt fucking Hardy, Chris fucking Jericho, a 20 fucking minute battle royal) but I feel they did a decent job hyping up the Revolution card. Here's to hoping that Bryan/MJF goes on first!

Is it an age thing to be brought to tears easier and by absolutely fucking anything? Not much used to get me in my late teens and early twenties, and in fact I had to fake crying sometimes just so people didn't think I was heartless. As I got a little older, that hard lump in the throat became more frequent but not too difficult to keep supressed. But now, in my mid-30's, I'm battling tears at a moment's notice and without prior warning, and also at the silliest shit.

PS: I'd like no lectures about my wanting to not cry, thanks. I know it's probably unhealthy and something deeply rooted that could be easily sorted with some therapy, but I cannot be arsed.

Grab a copy of Amplitude and THUG too, and that's your essentials done. You won't leave the house for a month. Thank JFC.

3 hours ago, RedRooster said:

If good wrestling is all you need to enjoy a show, power to you. However, I feel like there are people on here who would praise a show consisting entirely of Tony Khan snorting lines off a dog’s penis, providing there was a good match going on in the background.

1 hour ago, Infinity Land said:

I know this will fill many with dread because of the booking distraction on Dynamite. Forbidden Door 2 about four weeks after Double or Nothing. At least its a Saturday.

 

AEW have earned a lot of good faith for Forbidden Door 2. We all banged on about how slapdash, rushed and confusing the Dynamites leading up to the first Forbidden Door were (and we were correct), but then the actual PPV smashed it out the fucking park and was both a critical and commercial success.

So now we've got the sequel, and they've got four weeks to build it, which is a fucking perfect amount of time for a PPV. Bring it on, I can't wait.

AEW turned chicken shit into chicken salad thanks to a res hot crowd and fire up their arse to prove the doubters (like me) wrong. It had its ups (Orange/Yuta) & downs (Starks/Jericho) but AEW took a subpar card & overdelivered with the three pro wrestling essentials ; blood, guts & hatred. You are definitely not getting those qualities with WWE, which still makes AEW the perfect alternative and the choice of a new generation.

Evil Uno vs Jon Moxley is something that would've been on the midcard of a reshuffled DGUSA show in the early 2010's. Mox is now a megastar and Uno is ten years past his sell-by date, especially when it comes to singles matches, and I say that as someone who took a lot of flack on here for championing the Super Smash Bros during their heyday. He may be a good lad and "one of the boys", but so was Colt Cabana and he stunk out the joint with Chris Jericho last year.

I don't usually muck in with ratings chat, because all that matters to me is whether I was entertained or not. That goes for both good matches/segments that do bad numbers, and bad matches/segments that do good numbers. I don't give a toss if AEW brings in a celeb in a bid to increase optics, because to me it's shit (looking at you, Bow Wow), and I don't give a fuck if another great PPV-quality match on Dynamite does middling numbers, because to me it was great.

However, all that said, this week's Dynamite looks shit (again) from both a numbers perspective, and from an Accident Prone Stamp Of Approval viewpoint. A turgid looking card that is another example of AEW's long gaps between PPVs being a constant negative. It's not 1993 anymore; weekly wrestling TV that hits the two hour mark (not even including Rampage) needs more frequent PPVs and TV specials to climax feuds at their hottest instead of stretching things out to the point of constant mediocrity. I would rather AEW have 4 weeks of good Dynamites and a hot as fuck PPV, rather than 4 weeks of excellent Dynamites sandwiched between 4 weeks of sub-par, rushed Dynamites and a lukewarm PPV.

3 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

One minute you want me to be calling him a "wholesome, all-loving sympathetic protagonist", the next a total cunt. Something of a stretch, isn't it? What are you playing at here at all?

I think there's been a simple misunderstanding here, I don't want you to call Triple H anything. I misinterpreted your post, and it snowballed from there.

40 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Tony Khan is a billionaire and total cunt, HHH had just had a heart attack and is trying to make a somewhat coherent product out of what was left to him by a complete lunatic. Maybe that explains the 'bias'.

24 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I never said that or asserted that, don't be so daft.

"This one here is a total cunt, whereas as this one here just had a heart attack..." to me reads like that. I apologise if I am wrong though, and I'll now open the floor to you calling Triple H a total cunt.

I didn't know that a powerful, millionaire executive having a heart attack means that he is exempt from answering questions about his CEO father-in-law who resigned in disgrace to multiple allegations of misconduct. I'm not here to argue about which mega-rich pro wrestling booker is the bigger cunt either, although your assertion that Triple H is some wholesome, all-loving sympathetic protagonist in all this is quite confusing.

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

I bet they’re going to have Sami throw the weight of his support behind Cody in the build now. Which in theory makes sense if you try and make Zayn fans into Cody fans because they’re trying to bring the empire down together, but in reality will draw enmity to Cody from Sami’s embittered fans.

I would've had that concern a few years ago, but WWE's core fanbase are just happy to go along for the ride, especially now that WWE has legit competition in AEW. You never hear about WWE live crowds going against the product these days (mostly because they've frustrated the "vocal minority" who had standards and they fucked off elsewhere), and they'll have no issue positioning Cody in Sami Zayn's place in the run up to 'Mania. They've got an ex-AEW main eventer headlining WrestleMania as a climax to the most praised WWE storyline in a decade, so I think the ticket-buying WWE fans aren't going to show any anti-WWE or anti-Cody sentiment.

I would love to be wrong though. I would love to believe that WWE fans still have some bite to them, and don't just open their gobs for any old bullshit shovelled into their mouths these days, and the same goes for AEW (but that's for a different topic).

For the most part I loved Zayn/Roman. The atmosphere, energy & seeing Zayn getting his long overdue big push after following his career in real time for almost 20 years was so satisfying. Unfortunately the match also reiterated the usual WWE flaws and tropes that caused me to completely disconnect from them. Whilst high on emotion and with a hometown crowd rallying behind a lovable underdog, the match still ended up being more about the Bloodline am-dram family hour rather than one man's attempt to finally topple the king. I know people love it, but for me it's actively off-putting.

11 hours ago, RedRooster said:

I don’t think you’re denying this at all, but Tony Khan has clearly benefitted from the buddy-buddy nature of wrestling journalism also. For example - he signs Jay Lethal, and not one reporter asks him about the allegations against him at the post-PPV scrum. CM Punk trashes the company, and the reporters barely touch the allegations while quizzing Khan. 

Don’t get me wrong - I don’t think his Twitter habits alone will fuck the company up (although I do think they’re damaging) - Khan seems to have entered a headspace in which he dismisses legitimate criticism of AEW as being made in bad faith, choosing only to listen to the most sycophantic of AEW fan. And that’s a real shame, as initially, adapting to feedback was one of the company’s strengths. 

Yeah, TK hasn't exactly been grilled when it comes to his own press conferences, and I think that speaks to the nature of most wrestling news outlets these days. They want the free tickets and access to interviews, so they're not going to ask the hard questions. Hell, when Tony said that ROH had no TV deal, there was little to no follow-up from the geeks cosplaying as press in the room with him.

Ariel isn't/wasn't a fake journo though, and when you compare the Ariel/TK interview with the Ariel/HHH interview, it's a stark difference, TK got grilled, whereas Triple H was barely prodded into any uncomfortable position at all, which is shite when you consider that Triple H's father-in-law had recently retired due to a mountain of abuse accusations.

10 hours ago, Nick James said:

'Wrestling 'journo' in being bias shock!'

Most wrestling 'journos' have been rather pro-AEW throughout their existence, looks at King Dave for example. I see people like Satin and Helwani getting pelters quite often, but they're no different to the likes of Meltzer, WhatCulture and the likes. It's a fake fighting soap opera, people are bound to lean one way or the other naturally.

Helwani giving HHH an easy ride on a BT Sport puff piece promoting a show on BT Sport is hardly akin to Fiona Bruce laying up easy goals for the Tories in a hard hitting political debate. 

I think the idea that most wrestling outlets are mostly positive about AEW is a little off-base. From my experience, AEW gets roundly praised and fairly critiqued, even from Meltzer and WhatCulture. If anything, WWE is often graded on a curve these days whilst AEW has a constant high bar to hit.

I don't expect hard hitting journalism for a fake sport, but I do expect fair coverage from those who perceive themselves to be legit.

Ariel is a see-through bought-and-paid-for WWE shill on par with Ryan Satin, and Tony has every right to be pissed off when you compare Ariel's interview with Triple H to Ariel's interview with himself, but he still really should've learnt by now that these Twitter transgressions do him no flavours.

However, I've said it before and I'll say it again; Vince McMahon got away with over twenty years of awful transgressions and accusations of misconduct, so I doubt TK's forum posting habits will bring AEW to it's knees.

I'm more than happy and willing to nit-pick shows, but to say the overall quality of those shows has been a net negative due to those nitpicks is absurd. For every shite, lackluster or backward element of Dynamite, there's two or three great matches, angles or interviews to make up for it. This week's Dynamite was a show where the bad outweighed the good by a large margin, hence why it's getting railed by critique after critique, and we've not had one of those in a long while. Next week's show will be really important in setting course for AEW's immediate future; is it time for one of their usual slumps, or is it just a bump in the road?

AEW has one bad episode and you'd think the sky is falling. They're coming off a very hot streak of great shows, there's no cause for concern unless they're about to fall into one of their usual lulls. I'll start ringing the alarm bells if next week's show is just as bad as this week's, but for now it's just a misfire.